Update
13: Web of Chaos launches today
for
href="http://tentonhammer.com/ddo">Dungeons and
Dragons Online!
Ten Ton Hammer sat down with Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer, and
Adam Merksy, Director of Communications, for a hands-on preview plus
some info on the upcoming Menace
of the Underdark expansion!

Update
13: Web of Chaos serves as a
prequel to the upcoming expansion, Menace
of the Underdark. Not only is
there a free adventure pack in Update
13, but there are some other
welcome additions and changes to the game.

Web of Chaos

The main component of Update
13 for Dungeons
and Dragons Online is the new
adventure pack, Web of Chaos,
which is free for all players. This adventure pack contains three
adventures (The Lords of Dust, Servants of the Overlord, and The
Spinner of Shadows) which serve as a prequel to the events in the
upcoming Menace of the
Underdark expansion, slated for
release on June 25th!

In the Web
of Chaos adventures, players
will attempt to deal with a group of cultists, comprised of Rakshasas
and Drow, who are attempting to free the demonic Overlords who have
been imprisoned in Khyber. The Drow encountered in the adventures
aren’t your typical Eberron Drow. Instead, they are Drow who
have begun worshipping Lolth and wish to further her evil aims.

For those who are unfamiliar
with Lolth, she’s a central component of the Forgotten Realms
setting for Dungeons and
Dragons. She is an
exceptionally evil god who rules from the Demonweb Pits (a plane of
existence that you don’t want to go to!) and serves as the
principal deity of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms setting. She is
vicious, sadistic, cold-hearted, and has no compassion at all. In other
words, she’s bad news!

Fernando Paiz ran me through
the first and third adventures in the adventure pack. The first thing
players will notice that a crack has appeared in one of the giant
artifacts found in the Harbor that the city of Stormreach has been
built upon. Surely nothing bad can be happening from such a
circumstance? There’s no reason to worry why the Silver Flame
are gathering in force around the crack, is there? Well of course there
is and it’s up to the players to figure out what’s
happening.

In the first adventure, The
Lords of Dust, we fought through hordes of cultists, saw some
unexpected events, and attempted to stop an unholy ritual. The story
elements are strong in these adventures, but what really struck me was
the increased use of voice acting within them. Instead of the usual DM
voice mimicking other voices, Turbine now has different voice actors
portraying various key NPCs within the adventures.

Eventually players realize that
the cult is attempting to free an Overlord called the Spinner of
Shadows, which is an aspect of Lolth on Eberron. In the third
adventure, players attempt to stop the freeing of the Spinner of
Shadows, but are too late. What follows is an epic fight to force the
Spinner of Shadows back into containment. To do this, players will need
to kill Flame Eater spiders, which eat the power of the Silver Flame
guardian, and use that energy to rekindle the torches surrounding the
altar.

The Spinner of Shadows looks
amazing and my long-running hatred of Lolth (I’ve been
playing D&D
for 30 years) came roaring back as I fought to defeat her. Sadly, the
players aren’t successful and the Spinner of Shadows opens a
portal to the Demon Web and players get a glimpse of the true Lolth.
Luckily, the players are pulled back out before it’s too
late. The portal will get a lot of use later on as that it serves as
the gateway to Faerun and the Forgotten Realms setting in the Menace
of the Underdark expansion.

Pets

In Update
13, players will be able to
collect cosmetic pets. If players pre-purchase the Menace
of the Underdark expansion,
they will receive up to three different pets, depending upon the
expansion edition they buy. These pets are accessed through your
inventory, which will feature a new tab once you have a pet. Pets appear
account-wide, so once you’ve bought a pet, all your
characters receive them. The pets are cosmetic and don’t help
in combat, but you can give them gear and they will perform tricks.
Additional pets will be made available in the future.

Other Update 13 Additions

Starting with Update
13 for Dungeons
and Dragons Online, players
will receive a slice of 6 year-old birthday cake to celebrate the sixth
anniversary of DDO. But who wants to eat 6 year-old birthday cake, right?
When a player clicks on his slice of cake, a genie will appear and tell
you not to eat six year old cake, but he will trade you something for
it. He will offer you items ranging from stacks of healing potions to a
pork barrel (watch a pig explode on a barrel full of power and watch
ham rain down!) to the item what most people will probably grab, a +2
tome.

The other major change coming
in Update 13: Web of Chaos
is the fact that certain quest chains and adventures will now show all
named items as final rewards once the chain or adventure has been run
three times. Now you’re guaranteed to get Carnifex after
running Delera’s Tomb three times. This is a change that
I’m very happy about as that I hate endless grinding for cool
loot.

One last addition with Update
13 is that players can now
start at level 7 with Veteran Status. This status can either be bought
in the DDO
store or gained for free if you accumulate 3000 favor.

Menace of the Underdark
Sneak Peek

After running through the
contents of Update 13,
Fernando talked to me about the eagerly anticipated Menace
of the Underdark expansion. He
showed me one of the shapeshifting abilities of the upcoming Druid
class by turning me into a wolf. When a Druid shapeshifts into an
animal form, additional abilities become available to them, but certain
normal abilities are unusable while in wolf form. The
player’s size changes with the shapeshift. Players will be
able to perform most actions while in animal form, even though a
dancing wolf looks pretty hilarious to me. The Druid class and the
Eveningstar Challenge Pack are free for all VIPs.

The coolest part of the Faerun
tidbits fed me was the look at some new dragons. Sadly, I
wasn’t allowed to take any screenshots. However, Turbine has
new models and new technology to make some really awesome custom
dragons. They will be introducing a new dragon, the Green Dragon, and
the sizes of the dragons run the gamut from what we’re
accustomed to right now in DDO
to truly huge dragons. The dragons we’ve been fighting so far
are essentially teenage dragons, but now we get to rumble with some big
boys!

The official release date for
the Menace of the Underdark
expansion is June 25th and comes in three editions. Most players will
opt for the base edition, which has the expansion which comes with a
pet and a Lesser Tome of Learning. Those with deeper pockets can opt
for the standard edition, which has two pets and a Greater Tome of
Learning. Players with the deepest pockets can grab the
collector’s edition, which includes three pets, a Greater
Tome of Learning, and the onyx panther figurine.

The Lesser Tome grants a 10%
bonus to xp and a 25% bonus to xp the first time you complete a
dungeon. The Greater Tome increases that percentage to 20% and 50%
respectively. You will be able to upgrade Lesser Tomes to Greater Tomes
in the DDO
store. The xp bonus stacks with other bonuses. The Figurine of Wondrous
Power: Onyx Panther will summon a level 20 creature that will fight in
melee for you. This panther can always be summoned, but you must be
level 18 to use it.

Overall, Dungeons
and Dragons Online players have
a lot to look forward to. Update
13: Web of Chaos launches today
with a free adventure pack that includes a great boss fight and great
voice acting. Grinding should be reduced with the change that certain
quest chains and adventures will make all their named loot available
the third time around. You should expect to see hordes of pets running
around Stormreach as soon as players start getting their hands on them.
Plus, with the coming of the Menace
of the Underdark expansion,
players can begin adventuring in Faerun, face off against cool new
dragons, and shapeshift into woodland animals as a Druid. With
dungeons, dragons, druids, Drow, and the Underdark, 2012 looks to be DDO's
busiest year yet!